Endgame
by unlikely2
Summary: A series of oneshots, mainly Snapefic, following the events of Harry Potter and the HalfBlood Prince.
1. Endgame

It had probably been a mistake to call her 'my good woman', Moody reflected.

It had taken her a further twenty-five minutes to locate his dress robes and then another ten to sort out the bill. He could, of course, have had them done by a magical laundry but there was the risk of malicious interference. Instead he had handed them in to a small dry-cleaners in Hammersmith. He had claimed to be an actor. Unfortunately this has caused the woman to become even more disapproving. Apparently thespians rated rather lower on the social scale then common or garden lunatics. She had been entirely unimpressed by the eye.

The old Auror had been helping out at the ministry, had left late and was, by now, running very late indeed. He would no longer have time to oversee the arrangements for the Headmaster's funeral, and would instead be forced to rely upon the care of others. Alistair Moody would have denied paranoia but, despite the attendance of almost every Auror still capable of breath, he remained acutely uneasy. As he left Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, still fastening his cuffs, a gust of wind caught the door and caused it to swing back open behind him. Moody leant back and caught the handle to close it. He was down the steps before he realised his mistake.

As the flagstones swung up toward his already ruined nose he realised that it had been a bad one.

'There are potions that can produce anything from a mild unease to outright terror, and many of them are quickly absorbed through the skin,' Snape had once declared. There would be no need for such potions Moody decided. The one that had rendered him unconscious and his current situation were entirely sufficient. 'On the door handle?' he grouched.

'Indeed,' replied Snape. 'Accio magical eye.'

Without the magical eye the room was deeply shadowed. Moody was briefly grateful that Snape had not simply said 'Accio eyes', but perhaps that would come later.

Snape had no reason to like the Ministry. The nature and duration of the former Death Eater's interrogation at the hands of his colleagues has worried even the old Auror. The second time that Moody had arrived at Saint Mungo's to escort Snape back to Azkaban, the healers had flatly refused to release him. Eventually Malfoy's money and Dumbledore's persistence had paid off but Moody had questioned if someone who had been tortured as Snape had been could ever truly be on their side. Apparently his doubts had been justified. He pulled ineffectively at the bindings that held his hands behind him.

The set up was familiar.

Grimly, he recognised the office chair that he was bound to and the battered wooden desk. It was the grimily claustrophobic lock-up beneath the railway arch that the Order used for 'interviews'. In a way this was a relief. Moody knew that his absence would be noted soon and a search made. Whatever Snape had in mind, it would not, apparently, take long.

On the other hand this was Snape: a man whose intelligence and inventiveness were nothing if not exceptional and Voldemort's one time Inquisitor. That had been Snape's function before and perhaps it was again. Despite himself, Moody hoped so. He really hoped this wasn't personal.

'Get on with it,' he rasped.

Snape took hold of the back of the chair and turned it around to face the desk. 'Did you ever read "King Lear",' he enquired, leaning back to perch on the edge of the desk.

Moody had read "Lear". He said nothing as Snape's wand brushed against his jaw and drifted upwards.

Snape smiled and turned to drop Moody's magical eye into a glass of water on the desk and the small splash made Moody wish that he had used the toilet before coming out. 'Why d'you do it, Snape?'

Snape looked thoughtful. 'I wonder,' he mused, 'if you really want to know or if you simply want to keep me talking.'

'Dumbledore trusted you. He protected you. Do you really think that scum'll be grateful? It was my understanding that your "Dark Lord" doesn't like competition.' Moody tried not to blink at the wooden shaft a scant inch from his eye.

'Dumbledore was old and the curse from the horcrux had already taken his hand, arm and shoulder. His living flesh was dieing. Even the arm's removal would not have saved him. I could preserve the dead material and magic could give him the use of it, but it was only a matter of time.' Snape lowered the wand. 'And not a great deal of time at that.'

Moody actually startled himself with the burst of invective. Snape waited until the swearing ground to a halt. 'I believe', he said smoothly, 'that I would prefer not to enjoy your good opinion of me given the appalling depths of your stupidity.'

Moody choked. Snape turned and tapped the glass with his wand. Immediately a beam of light emerged from the pupil to form a circle of brightness on the wall. 'Show me the Order of the Phoenix,' murmured Snape. The magical eye began to rotate slowly. As it turned images were projected onto the walls: images of very familiar faces accompanied by distorted snatches of speech. Abruptly the walls seemed to be moving, the voices seeming to come from far away, whether from the after-effects of the potion or his own horror, Moody didn't know. It was hard to breathe.

Snape tapped the glass again, the light went out and the voices ceased. 'You mentioned that it tended to stick after you got it back from Crouch. Didn't you wonder why?'

'It was checked,' Moody protested sickly, 'I checked it.'

'Not well enough.'

Slumped in his chair, Moody forced himself to face the traitor. 'So you've got the Order and you've got the Ministry. You must be very proud.'

Snape got up and went to switch on the muggle light, the harsh illumination flooding the dirty little room. 'You are still not thinking,' he stated.

'So I'm stupid,' huffed Moody.

'What did Potter tell you?'

'That you killed Dumbledore.'

'Did he tell you that Dumbledore pleaded with me?'

'Dumbledore would never beg!' growled Moody.

'Nevertheless he did. Ask the boy. And then ask yourself what it was that he wanted.' Moody stared at the Order's one time spy. 'I think,' continued Snape, 'that you are familiar with the Janus Archive?' Moody nodded slowly. During the first war against Voldemort, a series of reports originating from within the Death Eaters had saved a great many lives, but shortly after Dumbledore had found a new source of information the reports had dried up. Never having officially been opened, the archive had not been closed. Instead it had been quietly set aside and the very existence of the files denied.

'I'll be in touch,' said Snape. 'In the meantime you will speak of this to no one. Right now, I think that you should sleep on it.' The wand came up.

'Wait!'

Snape waited.

'Why should I trust you?' demanded Moody.

'You shouldn't. Were I to be discovered . . .' Snape turned away.

Moody considered the former Potions and Defence Against the Dark Arts Master. 'Why?' he asked softly. 'What would Dumbledore plead for?'

'Fenrir Greyback was on the tower. A werewolf with a taste for the flesh of children and a craving to afflict them with his own disease was in the _his_ school and only I could make it leave, but only if breaking an Unbreakable oath to kill the Headmaster did not kill me first.'

'Are you saying that he chose to die so that you could live?' demanded Moody aghast.

'Would that really be so unlike him?' countered Snape turning back to face the Auror.

'But why would you make such an oath?' stormed Moody. 'You were never that stupid.'

There was a small movement at the corner of Snape's mouth. 'Because my refusal would have sent Lestrange back to her Lord in a heartbeat with news of my disaffection and, in the throes of the spell, I would have been unable to escape. I have no more desire than you do to answer the Dark Lord's questions. It was better to leave and take what time was left to me.'

'So why agree to pledge at all?'

'You understand the role I play,' said Snape.

Moody realised that, while that didn't really answer the question, it was the best answer he was going to get. 'Ok. You can untie me.'

A swift movement of Snape's wand released the Auror. 'My wand?' he enquired.

'In your back pocket.'

Swearing, Moody drew his wand. 'So tell me, who do you know who's lost a buttock?' Snape asked.

Pointedly, Moody said nothing and Snape smirked. Ignoring him, Moody fished his eye out of the glass and glared at it. 'If thy eye offends thee . . .' murmured Snape. Moody threw the eye into the air and a flick of his wand reduced it to a fine dust that filtered downwards to the filthy floor.

For the first time Moody really looked at Snape. The pale wizard had never really appeared well but now he looked dreadful. Moody realised that killing Dumbledore had done Snape no favours at all. All the future could hold for the spy would be increasingly suicidal missions from Voldemort in a world where every wand was turned against him. As he opened the door to leave, the Auror called out to him. 'Snape!' Moody knew better than to try and express sympathy or encouragement. 'I though Slytherins were supposed to be good at self preservation.'

For a moment Snape paused in the doorway. 'Let's hope so,' he said.

* * *

JKR has given Snape's birthday as January the 9th. This is the date of the 'Agonium' the feast day of the Roman god Janus. Janus is the god of doorways and hence, amongst other things, endings and new beginnings. 


	2. Tobias

Running hurt but the old man had made it. He leant, gasping, in the burnt out doorway waiting for the boy. 'Hsst!'

His quarry turned warily to find an old man with a flat cap leaning in the entrance to one of the many derelict houses in the run-down street. 'Over here!' The old man straightened and gestured with his crutch and the younger man relaxed.

Harmless: the owner of Spinners' End's junkshop, 'the catman', was also the local lunatic. An injury he'd suffered while in the army made the locals more tolerant of the obvious mental problems.

'I've not seen your cat old man.'

'Cat's been dead years.' The old man seized the other's arm and scuffled him into the house. 'No lad.' The cloth cap was removed and twisted and replaced on his balding head. 'We need to talk. Come on.'

Crutch pumping, the catman set off at a fast hobble and the younger man followed. Through the burnt out shell of the dwelling they slipped, unobserved, down the rear garden and along the high walled, cobbled entry that ran between the backs of rows of houses. The old man unbolted a gate to where butterflies flitted over a narrow path that ran between crowded elderberry, buddleia and briar. In the gap between the outhouse and the wall, as the gate was locked behind them, the younger man stopped breathing; such was the stink of catpiss and filth from his companion. Thorns scratched at him as he followed into the kitchen at the rear of the house.

'Hang on while I inter the coat.' Beyond the kitchen, stairs led up from a small passageway on the opposite side of which the door to the junk shop lay open. Inside the shop, battered wardrobes and warped shelving obscured the street, a fifties Formica table supported a pile of vinyl records and dust overlay everything. 'Pretty eh?' said the old man. Scarred psychedelic paint on the inside of the under stair cupboard was all that remained of the shop's long ago heyday as a boutique. The door closed and the stench diminished noticeably.

While the old man's clothes were shabby to the extent of holes in the elbows of the red cardigan, they were clean. 'Practical invisibility for muggles, that coat. Not so much they don't see you as they don't want to.' The younger man froze and then drew his wand.

'Would you like some tea?'

There was no reply and the old man tried again. 'I've some reasonable scotch upstairs?' He limped back into the passageway and began, heavily, to climb the stairs.

Shutting the shop door behind him, wand in hand, the wizard followed him up.

The dark, curtained room at the front of the house contained a pair of wooden chairs with cushions and an old table that looked to have been part of stock. The mantelpiece of the small, boarded over fireplace supported a bottle of scotch, a bottle of pills, spectacles, a single glass and a novel by Le Carre. 'Sit down, son. I'll find another glass.' In the corner an old television appeared to be showing some sort of "Gritty Northern Drama". As it began to rain onscreen, there came the crash of thunder outside. The old man came back with a glass and a small jug of water just as an inversion of perspective revealed that the television was, in fact, showing the street by the patch of wasteland to which the wizard had apparated.

Behind the television, a lead ran into a cupboard built into the lower half of the right hand bay beside the chimney. The wizard hauled it open. He was no expert, but the muggle electronic equipment looked expensive. Very expensive. The old man knelt beside him and began to push buttons.

The television screen flickered and the picture showed Pettigrew standing outside number eight. It wasn't raining so this had to be a recording. As they watched, a scooter drew up at the kerb. 'Smith?'

'That's me.'

'Pepperoni pizza with . . . '

'_Petrificus Totalis!'_ The deliver man remained frozen like a statue astride his scooter while Pettigrew took the box away and returned._ 'Obliviate!' _The pizza delivery man shook his head. 'Well?'

The man turned to find the pannier empty. 'I . . . I'm sorry . . . I don't know . . .'

'Must have fallen off. I suppose that happens sometimes. Look, don't worry about it. Next time, eh?' Pettigrew returned to the house. After a while the pizza delivery man rode away.

The screen went dark as the old man pushed another button and then closed the doors to the cupboard softly. 'Pettigrew's not there but Draco and his mother are in the house waiting for you and there's Aurors in number eleven, also waiting for you,' he said as he stood up. He picked up the bottle of scotch; opened it and part filled both glasses.

'Who are you?' demanded the wizard.

The old man swallowed his scotch, put the glass down on the table and took a deep breath. 'Many years ago I was married to a witch.' Severus stared at him. 'I didn't want to leave her. I was made to. Obliviated and . . .'

'Start at the beginning.'

Carefully the old man sat down.' I ran into her with a car,' he began. 'I was on my way . . .

_In his mind the scene unfolds: a snowstorm, an exhausted young doctor on his way back from a house call and, suddenly, on the road in front of him a woman . . . _

'_Jonathan!' he calls, staggering through the snow with his victim in his arms, but his senior colleague has heard the car draw up and is waiting at the door. On such a terrible night he's been worried for his friend. 'She just appeared out of nowhere! I couldn't stop in time.'_

_He lowers her gently onto the couch in the sitting room. The electricity's out but oil lanterns reveal a dark haired girl: painfully thin, her fingers when she touches the young doctor's face are icy. 'Felix Felices,' she murmurs._

_He takes her hand in his. 'My name is Tobias.' _

The old man shook his head. 'It was my fault.'

'It was all my fault. Eileen was special. When I found out that she was a witch, well that just proved it but I . . . I had to have more. Eventually she gave in and took me to Diagon Ally. She took me into Eelops and Flourish and Blotts and we were eating ice-cream at Florean Fortescues when this woman came up and wanted to know who I was. Ministry of Magic, she said she was from. Said there were forms to be filled in. Didn't seem to think much of Eileen marrying a muggle. But we went and I, being the thrice damned, bloody, cursed fool that I was, I put down our address.'

'Two days later an owl arrived with the complimentary issue "The Prophet" sent to people who put notices in. There it was: notice of our marriage, courtesy of Dolores.' Mechanically, he swallowed some of his scotch. 'Eileen panicked.'

_On a day in late summer they are waiting on the platform of the village station for the next train to anywhere. Their explanation of a belated honeymoon has been accepted but everything that they own of value is in the three suitcases at their feet. Eileen's face seems frozen. 'You worry too much,' he tells her. _

_In the hotel the next morning, while they are waiting for breakfast, he opens the paper to find, on page four, a report of an "unexploded bomb". Their small cottage is gone and they can't go back. _

_They take another train and another. _

'I found work. We sold jewellery my mother had given Eileen and bought a house. We were happy.' A single tear flowed down the old man's cheek. 'When you showed first signs of magic at the age of four she brought you to the factory gate to meet me.' Slowly, Tobias curled up into himself, hiding his face behind closed fists and narrow wrists. 'We bought ice-cream on the way home.'

When the shaking had subsided, the old man unclenched himself. For a long time he stared at nothing and then he began again. 'When we got home her family were there. She'd this cat: scruffy, little, grey thing she'd took in. '

'Misty,' supplied Severus.

'Misty, aye. They turned her inside out and she was still alive and then they turned her back. She ran into a wall and, when I picked her up, she was dead.' Old fingers clutched the arms of the chair. Then they threatened to do the same to you and Eileen . . . she believed them. She signed the papers for divorce.'

'What did you tell the Ministry?'

'Nothing. They used something that sounded like 'Silence'. They just didn't want to listen. I woke up on the pavement of a strange town with no memory of the last seven years. The police were interested in what had happened to your mother but they couldn't find a body. They had to let me go. One of my old school friends pulled some strings and I joined the army. Drifted into the 'Dirty Tricks' end of things.'

'Intelligence work?' suggested Severus.

'You might call it that.' A wry smile accompanied a shake of the old man's head. 'And then some university kid on the fast track slipped up and there were consequences.' He tapped the crutch. 'Turned out the lad with the pipe bomb did me a favour though, because I remembered and when I got out of hospital, I came back here.'

Severus picked up the bottle and refilled the old man's glass. 'Tell me about the Aurors.'

'Three teams of two. Eight hour shifts starting noon. They check each shift for all sorts of things. Not for electronics though.' The old man took a deep breath. 'You'll need to take them out. You can get into the house through the loft. Rightly there should be fireproof partitions between all the houses but there aren't.'

'No questions?' enquired Severus, softly.

'I heard them discussing what happened. Seems to me that you had a choice: one life or many.'

'About my mother?'

'She's dead. She'd have to have been for you to have done something so stupid.' Tobias sighed. 'What could have persuaded you to join Voldemort?'

'When it became clear that I was to be his only heir, my grandfather took me under his wing. I was taught manners and a few other things and, at first, I welcomed the attention. My mother was a drudge who cleaned other peoples' floors and ignored me. Sometimes she seemed to hate me. Later, after I'd realised that I'd become something they used to punish and control her, I wondered if perhaps she did.'

'No, she wouldn't. But after what they did to the cat, perhaps she didn't dare . . .' Tobias got up and crossed the landing into the bedroom. Severus considered the bolted hatch from the landing to the attic.

'Here.' Old fingers held a miniature flask suspended from a silver chain in the manner of an old perfume bottle. 'Felix Felices. "Bottled luck",' she called it.

'You can't make luck,' said Severus absently. 'You can only borrow it.'

'And then you have to pay it back?' There was no reply and the old man's eyes closed for several moments. 'It's empty anyway but I thought you'd like to have it.' Tobias lifted the chain over Severus head. 'Those Aurors. One of them's got kids and the other's only a kid herself.'

'And both of them think me Evil incarnate.'

'The older one does. The kid's not so sure, but they're both as jumpy as hell so be careful.' Tobias tucked the chain into Severus' open necked shirt and rested his hands on his son's shoulders. 'People aren't good or evil. They're just people: someone's son or daughter. Once you forget that . . . It's only ever about people. The things people choose to do.'

Tobias turned and began to drag the small table towards the landing. Severus took it from him. 'Watch the woman,' said Tobias. 'If it'll help that boy of hers, she'll throw you to the wolves.'

'That, I knew.' Severus climbed onto the table, drew the bolts of the hatch to the loft and scrambled up into the darkness. 'Hang on,' said Tobias and disappeared into the bedroom. He hobbled back carrying something. Awkwardly, fingers curled around the bedroom doorframe, he scrambled onto the table. Leaning away from the long shadowy drop of the staircase, he held up a torch. Severus took it, switched it on and got his bearings in the cobwebbed darkness of the loft space around him. Finally, he glanced back down into the house.

'Good luck, son,' said Tobias.

Severus lifted the hatch door back into place.


	3. Aurors

The cage-door of the lift rattled open and ex-Auror Alastor Moody stumped out. Half way along the corridor lay the office of the woman he was looking for: G. ('God') McMillan, Head of Auror Training. The door to the office stood open. Within, a sweet faced dumpling of a woman peered through her glasses into the recesses of a filing cabinet's bottom draw. Otherwise, both office and corridor were empty. 'Gertie!' letched Moody. 'Gertie Gusset! How are ye gel?'

Genevieve McMillan, terror personified to most of the Corps, straightened. Moody grinned lasciviously. 'Glorious, gorgeous Gloria . . .' Moody's wooden leg sprouted roots and blossom. He pulled loose from it and dropped to one knee. Resting his arm on his flower bedecked wooden leg, he assumed a poetic attitude and began. 'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways . . . ' A expression of cretinous lewdity was accompanied by an sort of filthy hooting. The floor began to flow around him; Moody was sucked into the office, leg and all, and the door slammed shut behind him.

It was an ordinary, old fashioned sort of an office with a large partners' desk, a chair on either side of it, occupying the middle of the floor. Library style cupboards extended towards the high ceiling and filing cabinets were wedged into what space remained. Green plants hung from on top of them. The most exceptional thing about the room wasn't at all obvious. The large magical window opened. Where it opened to was another matter. In the event of the ministry coming under attack both the holder of the office and its contents would leave through them.

'Moody.' McMillan removed her glasses and glared at him. 'How's the leg? How's the nose? Any other extremities you'd like to lose today?'

'Actually,' murmured Moody, now flat on his back and attempting to peer up her skirt, I was wondering if we could have a quick shag . . . er . . . sorry, chat.'

'Certainly, Mr. Moody.' McMillan lowered the wand. 'We can discuss your long overdue admittance to Saint Mungo's.'

'On what basis?' Moody sounded genuinely curious.

As he pulled himself together, McMillan sat down at her desk and produced two glasses, a bottle of gin, a sliced lemon and a soda siphon from a drawer. 'Insanity?' she suggested. 'Paranoia?'

'Oh now, Gunhilda, you're just being silly.' Moody poured a glass of gin, added lemon and tonic from the siphon and sat down. He favoured his colleague with an urchin grin. 'If I was that paranoid, I'd still be pretty.'

'The name is Genevieve and you were never pretty,' rebuked McMillan mildly, 'even as a baby. Don't forget I have seen the pictures.'

'Cute then?'

'Well ok, maybe I'll give you cute. What d'you want?'

'Apart from you?'

'Alastor. . .'

'The Janus files.'

McMillan sipped from her glass. 'Never heard of them.'

'Course not. Just what is your security classification Jenny? You've got access to the Personal Information of every Auror in the Corp. Same for the Wizengamot.'

'There are no such files, Alastor. Someone's been having you on.'

Moody sighed. 'After Voldemort went down, if you will recall, there was a bit of a party? Amateur drinkers falling all over?' McMillan swirled her glass apparently dissatisfied. Moody persisted. 'You remember old Weatherby, teetotal, last one out of the office every night, lived for the job? Died three days before he was due to retire?' She had produced a metal bucket and was loudly shovelling small icebergs into her glass, apparently taking no notice. 'Weatherby was telling me all about them and then he went to the loo and, when he came back, he remembered nothing.'

'Really?' She took another sip of gin and tonic. Apparently satisfied, she sat back.

'And then you came out of the Gent's loo.'

'If the Ladies was crowded and the Gents was empty then there was clearly an inequitable distribution of resources so naturally . . . '

'You obliviated him.'

'I did nothing of the kind.'

'Ok, you threatened him.' From outside in the alleyway, where the day workers were packing up and going home, came the echo of laughter and the clatter of the lifts. Moody sighed. 'Look, it's ok love; I understand why you couldn't tell me. I was too much of a target. If they'd managed to get their hands on me . . .'

'You made yourself a target!' McMillan's glass slammed into the desk. Moody waited quietly as his one time colleague's fists unclenched 'I'm sorry,' she muttered.

'Jenny.' Trying to think of something to say that would not result in injury; Moody got up and went to watch the rush hour traffic through the window. 'Where does this go?' he asked.

'That's classified,' said McMillan brusquely and not entirely without satisfaction. While Moody had been invalided out, she had remained at the heart of things. As he continued to watch the street, she softened. 'Come on, I'll buy you supper. I know a brilliant . . .'

'Not until we've discussed the Janus files.' In the silence, Moody turned back from the window. 'I tried to stay out of your way, you know.'

'I know.'

On a scale of wartime tragedy, he supposed, the loss of a love affair was a trivial thing. Pretty little Genevieve McMillan had developed a taste for dry humour and dryer gin and had devoted her not inconsiderable talents and energy to a Ministry that alternately cut budgets and demanded more and the loss was all his own. Even after so many years the taste was sour. 'The files are about to be reopened,' he said.

McMillan blinked. Finally she decided to go along with it. 'Who told you that?'

'The birthday boy himself.' He watched as she worked it out.

'Janus,' she mused. 'God of new beginnings. Feast of Janus: January ninth. Ok. Who do we know who has a birthday . . . ?' Astonished, she swung to face Moody. 'Snape?' Moody nodded. 'But why would he give himself away by using "Janus"? He'd have to have been insane?'

'Double bluff perhaps or . . . well how rational was it to turn against You-Know-Who? Maybe he thought he could use it as some sort of proof of his loyalties if our side won.'

McMillan put her head into her hands. 'Shit.'

'Shit,' confirmed Moody. 'We took Snape apart and let Malfoy go. Snape couldn't afford to say anything or they'd have done far worse than kill him.'

She looked up. 'There's no way we can trust him.'

'That's what he said. We use what he gives us and. After it's over, if he's still alive, we do what we can for him.'

'Is that all he asked for?'

'He didn't ask for anything. He claimed that Dumbledore pleaded with him on the tower: that Dumbledore was ready to die so Snape could live and get the Death Eaters the hell out of the school. If Greyback was there . . .' Moody shook his head.

He returned to the desk and refilled both glasses and then sat down grinning suddenly. 'Look, I can believe the pigeons and the rats but Weatherby was claiming that Janus used Herring Gulls to deliver messages.' Moody took another slug of his gin. 'Gulls can be bloody vicious. Why not pigeons?'

McMillan smiled reminiscently. 'It usually was pigeons. There was just the one gull,' she told him, dragging the morass of paperwork off the desk into a draw, 'and as time went by it kept getting rattier and rattier. Well, who could blame it? After it took off most of someone's ear we sent it back with a note.' She chuckled. 'So the next report came by muggle parcel post and we were only just in time to foil an attempt on Fudge. Five minutes later and . . . It was attached to the leg of a stuffed vulture.'

_Typical Snape_ thought Moody, and then it clicked.

McMillan smirked. '_That_ stuffed vulture. When Fudge survived even despite his own best efforts, Augusta had it made into a hat. Why d'you think our former dear leader goes a little green every time he sees her? What happened to the eye by the way? It's not moving.'

Moody plucked it out and showed it to her. 'Just glass. Crouch had the magical one charmed to record what it saw.'

'But it was checked!' McMillan scowled in exasperation. 'Snape told you, I suppose?' Moody nodded. 'I suppose that we should be grateful that he hates Voldemort more than he hates us. Look, I need to talk to some people. Will you wait for me?' Still scowling and without waiting for an answer, McMillan crashed out through the door which swung shut behind her.

'Forever, my love,' murmured Moody. For over an hour the old Auror contemplated the London evening sky, before settling down to wait. As night fell, he charmed the hard wooden thing he was sitting on into a recliner. Muggles did have some good ideas sometimes: he wouldn't be as vulnerable as in a bed but he'd be more comfortable until such time as she got back.

And she would come back.

Thoroughly battered but not quite broken, Alastor Moody hummed to himself and waited.

* * *

Sorry about the double post.While this remains a series of one-shots, I thought that they might make more sense if I imposed some sort of order. 


End file.
